Lynch, Breen and Kenny take top ten places in World Cup at Lyon

Tipperary riders Denis Lynch and Shane Breen finished in the top ten at the hotly-contested FEI World Cup competition in Lyon, France today, as did Offaly-born Darragh Kenny.

Breen and Golden Hawk and Lynch with Thomas Straumann’s stallion All Star were two of the eight combinations to qualify for the jump-off from a starting field of 40 of the world’s top riders and horses.

Lynch, briefly in the lead with a clear jump-off round, finished in fourth place at the end, while Breen had two fences down in the second round, but nevertheless claimed a seventh place.

Kenny and Go Easy de Muze, who had a single fence down in the first round and therefore didn’t qualify for the jump-off, still managed to take a tenth place as second-fastest of those with four faults on the card.

Frank Rothenberger’s difficult course saw no less than five riders retire in the first round, including Ireland’s Billy Twomey, Germany’s Marcus Ehning and world number one ranked rider Christian Ahlmann, as well as France’s Jerome Hurel and Belgium’s Zoe Conter.

Victory and the 56,250 euro winner’s cheque finally went to Germany’s Daniel Deusser and the bay mare Equita van T Zorgvliet, who were sixth to jump, and proved too fast for the two remaining challengers.